Rabbi's Message

Machshavot HaRav: Reflections from Rabbi Waxman

                               Coming to America

Yesterday, the City Council of New York voted to recognize “Landing Day,” the day on which the first Jews arrived in Nieuw Amsterdam. (It is now part of the city’s official calendar.) The exact date is lost to history, but it is known that they debarked in the week leading up to Rosh HaShanah, which in 1654 began on Saturday, September 12^th. (The Dutch had already switched to the Gregorian Calendar.) In other words, sometime this past week was the 370^th anniversary of the first contingent of Jews here in North America.

For the record they were not the first Jews to land here. Setting aside the probability that conversos and their descendants may have been part of Spanish expeditions, the 23 Jews who washed up on these shores—they had been rescued from pirates--, were greeted by Jacob Barsimson of Amsterdam, sent by the Jewish community to see if Nieuw Amsterdam would welcome Jews—the community was on the lookout for new places to settle without fear of persecution. Barsimson arrived several weeks earlier, on August 22^nd.

Peter Stuyvesant was a reluctant host and within a short time wrote to the Dutch West India Company that he deemed “it useful to require them in a friendly way to depart.” He went on to add this was because of “their customary usury and deceitful trading with Christians, [they] were repugnant to the inferior magistrates, as also to the people having the most affection for you.”  It is debated how much influence Jews had on the Company—a small percentage owned shares—but the Amsterdam Community made it clear that preventing Jews from residing in Nieuw Amsterdam would be deemed an unfriendly act, and besides the Jews and the Dutch shared common enemies in Spain and Portugal. And moreover, the Jews of Brazil, in the short-lived colony of Recife, had been loyal and economically useful to the Dutch. Apparently, this appeal and private petitions worked, for in late April of 1655 the company instructed Stuyvesant as follows: “these people may travel and trade to and in New Netherlands and live and remain there, provided the poor among them shall not become a burden to the Company or to the community…” A year later, the Jews were granted the right to assemble quietly for their own services, with a Torah service having been previously sent from the Netherlands. In 1656, the Jews purchased land for a cemetery. Asser Levy may have had a public school named in his honor; he was not alone in seeking to expand Jewish rights in the Dutch colony: Barsimson also deserves credit.

When the British took over in 1664, many of the Jews in the Dutch colony—and they had been supplemented by others who came from abroad—left and settled in Dutch colonies or returned to Amsterdam. Levy remained with a few others. Nearly 20 years would pass before services were again conducted on a regular basis, and additional land was purchased for a cemetery. (Today it is the Chatham Square Cemetery, which is enclosed and closed to visitors.) By 1695, per an extant map, the first synagogue building had already been erected. (This synagogue survives today as Shearith Israel.) Such were the humble beginnings of what became the largest Jewish community in the world.

Shabbat shalom.
Once again, Friday night on Zoom:

Here is the link for our Friday evening service at 8 p.m.:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83736031460

Meeting ID: 837 3603 1460

Saturday morning in the sanctuary at 10 a.m.

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Payrush LaParshahah: A Comment on the Weekly Torah Portion

The portion of Key Taytsay (Deuteronomy 23:8-24:13) is read this Saturday, September 14^th.

23:18 No Israelite woman shall be a prostitute, nor shall any Israelite man be a prostitute. (19) You shall not bring the fee of a whore or the pay of a dog into the house of your God YHWH in fulfillment of any vow, for both are abhorrent to your God YWHW.

18, prostitute. Heb. K’deishah and kadiesh. In the past, scholars understood these terms a reference to male and female cult prostitution, which was associated with Canaanite and Mesopotamian fertility rites where ritual sexual union was believed to ensure agricultural fertility. The reason for this interpretation is that the term k’deishah derives from k-d-sh (meaning “holy” or “set apart”) and the etymologically related Akkadian term kaishtuI refers to a type of priestess. Recent scholarship, however, has questioned the existence of cult prostitution in the ancient Near East, although there may have been prostitutes in the vicinity of temples, and temples may have received funds from their activities. Many scholars now believe that k’deishah means a common prostitute zonah), not a cult prostitute (see Genesis 38:15,21, where both terms are used.) [Others suggest different interpretations. Tikva Frymer-Kensky writes that k’deishah refers to “a public woman, who might be found along the roadway (as virgins or married women should not be). She could engage in sex, but might also be sought out for lactation, midwifery, and other female concerns” (Women in Scripture, 2000, p.162). Phyllis A. Bird, who translates k’deishah as “hieroldule” (from Greek, meaning “a sacred/holy servant”) considers the term to refer to a variety of cult-related women (Missing Persons and Mistaken Identities, 1997, p. 199)—Ed.]

While the Bible certainly does not encourage prostitution, it acknowledges and accepts it as part of the social reality. Indeed, since prostitutes are among the socially inferior in that they do not belong to male-headed households, the Bible occasionally treats them with sympathy (see the depiction of Rahab in Joshua 2 and the two women who plead before Solomon in I Kings 3:16-27). Deuteronomy’s strong stance against prostitution fits with the book’s idealized picture of society.  (Adele Berlin, “Ki Teitzei: Relationships and Society,” in Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Andrea L. Weiss, eds., The Torah; A Women’s Commentary. Professor Berlin, who was born in 1943 in Philadelphia, received her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. Beginning in 1979 she taught at the University of Maryland in the Jewish Studies Program, the Hebrew Program and the English Department. For many years, until her retirement in 2009, she was the Robert H. Smith Professor of Biblical Studies. For 3 years she served as Director of the Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies (1988-91) and later, in 2005-6, was chair of the University Senate. She is the author of four biblical commentaries: Zephaniah, published in 1994 as part of the Anchor Bible series, Esther, published by the Jewish Publication Society in 2001—and this commentary appeared in Hebrew as part of the Mikra LeYisrael series--, Lamentations in 2002 for the Old Testament Library series, and most recently, The JPS Bible Commentary: Psalms 120-150, which was published last summer. Other volumes of hers include Biblical Poetry through Medieval Jewish Eyes, The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism, and Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative. She was the co-editor, along with Marc Brettler, of The Jewish Study Bible. Professor Berlin was also the editor-in-chief for the revised edition of The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion. In 2000 she was president of the Society of Biblical Literature and served as a Guggenheim Fellow. In 2013, A Festschrift, "Built by Wisdom, Established by Understanding": Essays in Honor of Adele Berlin, was published.)

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Questions for Key Taytsay 5784 (Deuteronomy 23:8-24:13)

1. In the light of 23:9, if a native Egyptian now converts to Judaism, would she be considered a full member of the tribe?
2. How far outside of the camp were the latrines?
3. Article IV Section 2, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution reads: “No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.” Did the framers of the Constitution ignore the Bible in framing this clause?
4. What is the meaning of “pay of a dog” mentioned in 23:19?
5. What upside is there to not charging interest to a MOT?
6. If one strolls through an apple orchard, can one pick an apple to eat? How about taking several apples for an apple pie?
7. What is the meaning of “something obnoxious” as it pertains to one’s wife? Does the Hebrew Ervat Davar, which literally means “a naked thing”, suggest a higher standard for divorce?
8. Why does the Torah forbid Husband #1 from remarrying his wife, after she is divorced from husband #2?
9. How long a military deferment is granted to a groom? Is there a deferment for studying in a yeshiva?
10. Why the ban on taking a handmill or an upper millstone?
11. What did God do to Miriam and why?
12. What do verses 24:12-13 suggest about the material possessions of many Israelites?

Questions for the Haftorah (Isaiah 54:1-10)

1. What is promised in the opening verses of the Haftorah?
2. What are the repeated negative images of Israel found in this passage?
3. Verse 8 serves as the basis for what theological concept?
4. Outside of this passage, and Genesis and I Chronicles, Noah is mentioned only once in the Hebrew Bible. Where and in what context?
5. Is the flood ever referenced anywhere else in the Hebrew Bible? 
6. What is the durability of God’s commitment to Israel?